


Small Problem [April Fool's Day]

by FalseRoar



Series: Can You Wake Up? [10]
Category: Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series), markiplier - Fandom
Genre: April Fools' Day, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Magic, Mark Fischbach Egos, Post-Who Killed Markiplier?, Sean McLoughlin Egos, Shrinking, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-09 05:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20509571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalseRoar/pseuds/FalseRoar
Summary: A silly story I posted on Tumblr for April Fool's Day, 2019. When Marvin the Magnificent drops by the Iplier house to show Y/N a trick he's been working on, things quickly go off the rails. References A Little Magic and how Marvin needs a little time to get a handle on new spells.





	Small Problem [April Fool's Day]

“Uh, thank you, Jim?” you said, unable to hide your confusion as the Jims leaned over the table in front of you, both waiting to see your reaction.

“It’s the next breaking story, you’ll see!” Jim said, as Jim nodded behind him.

“I’m sure it is, but why is it on VHS?” you asked, holding up the tape with a peeling label where the title had been written by some Jim in thick black marker, splattered with what looked suspiciously like bloodstains.

“Everyone knows that tape is the gold standard for high-fidelity, high-quality, high-spooky recordings.” Another nod from the Jim in back, confirming this.

“I’ve seen your camera, it doesn’t even _use_ tape.”

“Yeah, took Jim forever to figure out how to do the transfer, but you just can’t pass up on that grainy, improperly focused good stuff.”

“Do we even have a VCR in the house?”

Jim looked at Jim, who shrugged.

“…Give us a minute.”

The Jims had cornered you right after a meeting with the egos who had studio time this week, where you tried to explain to Bing why trying to do a flip over Bim Trimmer’s chiranhas on his skateboard would be a very bad idea, considering even just doing an ice bucket challenge was enough to make him short-circuit, while Randal tried and failed to convince Eric that the pigeons for his skit were not out to get him. So pretty normal for one of these weekly meetings.

You watched through the glass walls of the conference room as the Jims ran down the hall in what looked suspiciously like the direction of the Host’s studio before you leaned back in your chair and closed your eyes. Maybe you could enjoy a minute or two of peace before they got back.

“Y/N! Good, you’re not busy!”

Marvin blinked behind his white cat mask as, with a yelp, you went toppling over backwards in your chair and disappeared for a moment behind the table.

“Uh, bad time?” he asked, his smile weakening when he saw your expression.

“I just got out of a meeting with some of the Iplier egos,” you said, noting the wisps of magic from Marvin’s teleportation spell fading around his feet. “Can’t you call or something before you pop in like that?”

“Sorry, but this is really—” Marvin paused and looked around. “Wait, just you? Doesn’t Mark usually sit in on this kind of stuff?”

“When he can, but he’s busy with his own project right now, and Wilford…” You paused and Marvin nodded. Wilford didn’t care so much about the little details, and when he did get involved the meetings tended to go in a…different kind of direction. Which somehow left you as the person to figure all of this madness out, when you could. And as much work as it could be some days, you found there was something satisfying about helping the egos create their own content. That didn’t change the exhaustion in your voice any as you asked, “So you need help with something?”

“Yes, this is really important,” Marvin said, and with a flourish he pulled a deck of cards from his pocket and fanned them across the table. “Pick a card, any card.”

“Oh, no, not this again.”

“Please, I think I’ve definitely got it this time!”

“Marvin, you can do _real_ magic, why do you care so much about figuring out how to do some card trick?”

Marvin thumped the table with his hand, eyes flashing behind his mask. “It’s the principle of the thing, Y/N, and I may have made a bet with Jackie—”

He stopped midsentence as both of the TV monitors on either end of the conference room crackled with static, their speakers squealing briefly from feedback before falling into a gentle, vibrating hum. You saw the panic in his eyes, the way his whole body tensed at the sound, only to spin around as the door to the room cracked open, one hand outstretched as words poured out of his mouth, the other braced in front of you.

The wave of magic flooded over you but hit the man at the door straight in the chest, sending him stumbling backward into the wall where he slid down to the ground, and then further down still.

By the time Marvin realized his mistake, the spell was done. He stood there, frozen in the same pose, while you got up and walked over to where Dark lay on the ground.

“Marvin…?” you said, only to be answered by a weak squeak from behind you. “You didn’t just…”

“It was reflex,” he said, his voice high and shrill as he tried and failed to regain his composure.

You knelt down in front of Dark, who was blinking and shaking his head as if to clear it.

“What—” Dark started but the sound stopped in his throat as he looked up and realized how you and the rest of the room towered over him. There was a sharp ring as his aura lashed out, but it was so high-pitched that it was almost hard to hear. “What did you do?!”

“Just a shrinking spell,” Marvin said. Despite Dark’s diminutive size, the magician didn’t seem eager to come any closer. “It was an accident, I swear.”

You looked over your shoulder at Marvin as you said, “I thought the spell took longer than that. And why was _that_ the first thing to come to mind?”

“I may have been practicing it recently,” Marvin answered, and he coughed and looked away when he saw your accusing glare.

“But he knows how to undo it,” you said to Dark when you saw the look on _his_ face. “Right Marvin?”

“I…might have used the timer one,” Marvin said. “Don’t give me that look! It’s the first way I learned it, that kind of thing sticks.”

“So how long will this last?” Dark asked, cold fury dripping from every word as he did not look away from the ego.

“Not long enough,” Marvin muttered, glancing at the clock on the wall as he did so.

Dark’s aura was spreading now, leaving afterimages in his wake that almost doubled his size, for all the good that did.

“Look, Dark,” you started, hoping to try and calm the situation before the spell ended, but before you could finish the sentence you saw his aura suddenly shrink in to a bare outline as he looked away from Marvin for the first time.

Following his gaze, you acted out of instinct, catching Dark up in one hand and hiding him behind your back just seconds before Wilford Warfstache barreled in through the open conference room door.

“Good evening!” He grinned around the room and paused. “I didn’t miss something, did I?”

“Uh…” You were distracted, feeling Dark squirm in your hand as his aura spread up to your wrist, the freezing pressure tight enough to start cutting off the circulation to your fingers.

“I, was just, um, showing Y/N a card trick?” Marvin said, but Wilford looked around the room again before focusing in on you.

“Ooo, someone’s hiding something!” Without seeming to cross any of the space in between he was suddenly behind you and had one hand on your wrist. With one neat movement he spun you around to face him so that you could see the second his eyes lit up at the sight of the tiny Dark.

“Wilford,” Dark said warningly, but when Wilford held out his other hand and gave you the “gimme” gesture, you didn’t think twice about handing him over. Your hand ached with cold from where Dark’s aura had touched you and shaking it didn’t seem to do any immediate good. “Wilford, I swear, if you even _think_ the word ‘yeet’—”

“Aren’t you just the cutest little demon, yes you are,” Wilford cooed. “I could just kiss you!”

Dark’s protest was cut short as Wilford smooched him, and when Wilford promptly placed him on the table, he made a show of coughing on his hands and knees.

“Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad,” you said, trying not to grin when Wilford gave you a wink.

“I saw death,” Dark gasped. “And it looked like a giant pink mustache come to smother me.”

Wilford patted his mustache at that, but then a new grin soon appeared as he turned on Marvin. “You did this? Can you make it work on more than one person?”

“Uh, sure?” Marvin said as you shook your head furiously behind Wilford.

“Fantastic! Be right back!” Wilford charged out of the room just to reappear a second later, martini in hand. “I’ve been preparing for this moment my whole life.”

A couple of seconds later, as the hum of magic still hung heavy in the air, you said, “That really can’t be comfortable.”

“Where did he get the old timey bathing suit from?” Marvin asked as you watched the man recline in his martini glass, one arm looped around the base of a tiny paper umbrella.

“More importantly, how long does this spell last?” Dark asked.

Marvin looked up at the clock again, his lips moving as he counted silently, but he was interrupted by Wilford.

“You know who would really enjoy this?” he asked. “Old Abe, that detective knows the importance of a good drink every now and then.”

You glanced at Marvin, who looked at the clock again, calculating, before glancing at you. “You’ve got to be kidding me, there’s no way he would want to do this.”

Marvin grinned and disappeared in a burst of magic.

In the meantime, Dark paced across the surface of the table restlessly before suddenly pausing to look up at you. “You’ve seen him use this spell before?”

You opened your mouth as if to answer, but a long gap of silence followed before Marvin finally returned, Abe stumbling beside him with one hand held up to his hat to keep it in place.

“Partner?” he said when he caught sight of you. “This guy said you needed help, there was…something…”

He broke off when he spotted the tiny Dark and Wilford, the second one waving up at him from inside a martini glass.

“Marvin,” you said, but the magician was already saying the spell and you instinctively flinched as the magic hit you again, leaving a tiny detective in its place. “Marvin!”

“What the hell is going on here?” Abe asked, jumping as a surprisingly dry and back in his regular clothes Wilford suddenly appeared at his side in and threw an arm over his shoulder.

“Alcohol, my friend,” Wilford answered earnestly. “Y/N, fetch the hot cocoa and we can turn this into a real party!”

“A soon to be dead magician,” Dark answered at the same time.

“It will only last a few minutes,” was your answer, before you dragged Marvin away from the table. “What are you doing?!”

“I just…needed a little extra time?” he said slowly, as if trying to gauge your reaction. “Y/N, do you still have that card I gave you?”

Suspicious, you pulled a neat little card from your wallet, the light in the room catching gilded letters that promised one “get out of little spell” free. “…Why?”

“Just a little loose end,” Marvin said, swiping it out of your fingers despite your protest. “Don’t worry, I’ll give it back…later. Promise!”

“Ooo, and plenty of marshmallows!” Wilford was adding as if no one else had interrupted. “Come on, Y/N, this spell isn’t going to last forever!”

“I can keep an eye on them,” Marvin added.

“So we’re just going to roll with this then,” you said, and Marvin nodded eagerly. You sighed, but then again, this was basically how you dealt with everything this place threw at you. _“Fine. _But you know that spell’s going to wear off eventually, even if I don’t use the card.”

You left to the sound of Dark quietly and patiently describing everything he would do to the magician once he was back to normal while Marvin pulled out his cellphone and started a text message. When you returned with a tray of steaming mugs and marshmallows to the side, Marvin was focused on the clock again and seemed to be bouncing on his feet in time to the second hand.

“I wish I could say this is the weirdest thing you’ve dragged me into,” Abe said to Wilford as the pink-mustached man hugged one of the marshmallows to his chest.

“Great, have fun with that,” Marvin said before it was his turn to drag you away from the table and out of earshot of the others. “So, the timer spell. You remember how it worked, right?”

“It only affected the person for the length of time you decided on,” you answered. “How long is this supposed to last, again?”

“Okay, but do you remember the second part?”

You stared at Marvin for a moment, trying to figure out what he was getting at. “You mean when it affected JJ? But that was only because you accidentally used the spell to target two people—”

He smiled, sort of, his teeth were showing but he looked more nervous than anything as he waited for the shoe to drop.

_“Don’t tell me—”_

“Look, I told you, it was reflex, and you were there, and it’s just the way I learned the spell the first time, I’m still working on it—”

“How long will it last?!”

“Well, for them, about fifteen minutes each. For _you_…”

Marvin rarely needed to teleport less than five feet away, but he thought at this point it might be a good idea to have the table in between the two of you.

It wouldn’t have made much of a difference to you if, at that moment, you hadn’t felt a wave of dizziness as the magic took hold.

Dark, for his part, recognized when the spell began to weaken and took a running start for the edge of the table, so that at the moment he was back to normal sized he was already lunging toward Marvin, one hand on the magician’s throat as he pinned him to the glass wall.

“Any last words, magician?” Dark asked.

Marvin pointed and managed to get out the words, “Look, a tiny Y/N.”

In Dark’s momentary distraction, the magician disappeared in a green puff of smoke and you spent several seconds swearing as Abe gave you a hand up from the edge of the table. Good thing you had been leaning on it just a second before, but the drop to the ground below still felt too close as you walked closer to the middle of the table.

“Good to see you joined us,” Wilford said as he thrust a marshmallow into your arms. “Okay, now about the cocoa—”

“Well, isn’t this cute,” Dark said as he took a seat at the table and looked down at the three of you. “But if he used the same spell, you won’t be small for much longer, Wilford.”

“Right, no time to waste!” The man cried as he grabbed Abe’s hand and started to drag him toward one of the steaming mugs.

You heard a chuckle just before the tip of one of Dark’s fingers touched your back, gently, just between the shoulder blades, and his aura washed over you. When he was tiny in your hand it had felt like just a cold grip, but now it was like being wrapped in a warm gauze, stifling and heavy as he rubbed your back in a small (to him) circle.

“Perhaps the magician could be convinced to make this a little more permanent,” he said, watching with a half-smile as you staggered and then slowly relaxed under the pressure of his aura. This small, even just a tiny portion of his power was enough to completely overwhelm you, if he so desired. “So much more convenient, don’t you think?”

Dark’s words were muffled as if coming from a great distance as you just felt so relaxed, so calm, so—

And then Wilford Warfstache was suddenly his regular size right in the middle of the table, one foot digging into Dark’s chest as he squirmed around and sat up.

Wilford sighed down at the overturned mugs and said, “What a waste,” before popping a marshmallow into his mouth. “Oh, sorry, Detective. Got a little close there, huh?”

Near his hand, Abe struggled to find the words after almost being crushed by Wilford’s sudden return to size. He did, however, notice you shaking your head and backing away from Dark and said, “Y/N, you okay?”

“Aw, look at them!” Wilford reached out and, your head still fuzzy from whatever Dark had just tried to do to you, you could do little to escape from his grip. Instead, you found yourself clinging to Wilford’s hand as he lifted you up to eye-level and grinned. “Only way they could be more adorable is if they were riding one of the King’s squirrels.”

“I’m definitely not doing that,” you said.

“Convince Dr. Iplier he’s suddenly become a giant?”

“Not sure how that would work, and I really don’t want anyone to see me like this,” you said, but you couldn’t imagine how it could be any worse than with these three unless Mark were here too.

Wilford considered for a moment and leaned toward Dark, using his other hand to hide his mouth as he whispered a suggestion.

“Absolutely not.” Dark’s aura rang for a second and you and Abe both had to clap your hands to your ears to block out the sound. “They are not dolls, Wilford. And perhaps you should hand Y/N to me. You are not the most…careful person.”

“Don’t be absurd!” Wilford tossed you up into the air and caught you with the same hand. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“Hey now, be careful with my partner,” Abe said and Dark snorted as he tried to hold back a laugh at that.

The laugh was cut short though, as the spell on Abe suddenly wore off and he was standing, regular-sized again, in the middle of the conference room table. That is, until he lost his balance and went crashing straight into Dark.

Wilford looked down at the bundle of limbs and groans from his seat on the conference room table and whistled. “Some people just aren’t careful, huh, Y/N?”

“Please don’t toss me like that again,” you said, putting as much feeling as possible into the words as you wrapped your arms around one of his fingers.

“Hm…” His eyes seemed huge as he studied you, narrowing slightly before he broke into a smile you didn’t quite trust. “Shhh, it’s okay, Y/N. Ol’ Warfstache has got you.”

You held on tighter as he suddenly moved, swinging his legs around and jumping up to his feet before using his free hand to help the Detective up onto his feet.

“Here, hold this,” Wilford said before unceremoniously dumping you into Abe’s hands. He walked a couple of steps away before spinning around to face the three of you. “Now, how are we going to spend the rest of Y/N’s time as a little one?”

“Not throwing me.”

“Plotting the death of a certain magician,” Dark answered.

“What are those two doing here?” Abe asked, gesturing toward the other side of the glass wall with a tilt of his head as he was using both of his hands cupped together to hold you.

The Jims waved on the other side of the glass, one of them gesturing toward the device the other Jim was holding before they ran in through the door.

“We got it, Jim!” Jim said. He did a double take when he saw you in Abe’s hands and leaned toward the other Jim as he added, “Looks like we’ve got a case of magic gone wrong here, Jim. Perhaps the Detective has finally taken his partner’s life into his hands, literally?”

“Or maybe he’s finally found a partner he can keep a hold on,” Dark said, his smile growing wider in response to Abe’s scowl. “Oh, that might have been a poor choice of words. Still, perhaps it would be better if one of us held Y/N instead?”

“I think I’ll take my chances with Abe,” you said, shooting Dark a glare and failing to miss the surprise and then smile that spread across the detective’s face before you turned to the Jims. “And while I’d love to hear how you two found a VCR, I’m not sure now’s a good time to watch your tape…”

Both Jims’ faces fell in unison and Jim said, “Really? But we’ve got something really special here.”

Dark spotted the tape and flipped it over to read the title aloud. “’The Santaplier Conspiracy’?”

“Pretty sure I killed that guy,” Wilford said. “At least, I think I did? Honestly, it’s hard to keep track after a while.”

“Ignoring that,” Abe said, “I’ve got some time to kill if you guys do.”

“…I’ll admit that I’m curious,” Dark said. “These two are at least entertaining, if often wrong in every conceivable way.”

“I’ve got the popcorn!” Wilford said, holding up a massive bowl in his hands that he did not have two seconds ago.

“How do you do that?” Abe asked out of reflex, even if he had given up on getting an answer a long time ago.

The others all looked at you.

“So we’re all just going to roll with this then?” you asked aloud, but you already knew the answer to that. “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

Dark, Wilford, and Abe settled into chairs around the conference table while the Jims set up the VCR and dimmed the lights. As the TV screen flashed blue before crackling into a snowy scene, you tried to make yourself comfortable in the chest pocket of Abe’s white dress shirt. He had quietly insisted on it, sure that Dark or Wilford might try something while the two of you were distracted, and in response to the idea Wilford had just laughed and given you a wink. You wondered, not for the first time, just where Marvin had gone after he teleported away. Definitely not far enough away, as you planned to have a very long, very _vocal_ discussion with Marvin about his magic once this spell had worked its course.

Until then, you settled back and watched the horror proceed on the screen, at least when Abe wasn’t blocking the view with his hand as though trying to protect you from things best left unseen. To one side, Dark sank down in his chair, one hand to his mouth, while on the other Wilford happily ate his popcorn and laughed out loud more than once. The Jims, for their part, were more than happy to provide a running commentary as a hand emerged from the stained snow and a red-suited body soon followed.

In another time zone, in another country, Marvin flipped furiously through the book Chase had dug out for him when he received the first frantic text.

“Everything okay?” Chase asked eventually, when Marvin swore at the page and turned to the next chapter.

“Perfect. Fine. Great. I just have…” Marvin glanced at the clock on the wall. “Twenty-five minutes to find a spell to make several people forget something if I want to live.”

Chase sighed and pulled up a chair.

_“Again?”_


End file.
